If last year's $PNUT rally happened now, the price action would be completely different.

Just imagine if meme perpetual contracts were already mature back then—going long on spot while opening a small short for hedging. This kind of strategy would have directly suppressed those wild vertical pumps. The FOMO would still be there, but the gains would be flattened by the hedging, turning a rocket launch into more of a steady climb.

The downtrend would also play out differently. Bears wouldn't wait for the top to enter; they'd start positioning halfway up. The waterfall drops might still come fast, but some of the momentum would be absorbed in advance, and we might even see a few decent rebounds—after all, some people need to take profits and close positions.

Most importantly, market sentiment would no longer be a mystery. Funding rates and open interest would quantify speculative heat as data, so instead of guessing the market temperature, you could see it directly in the indicators.

The essence of meme coins is still sentiment-driven, but with perpetual contracts as a tool, at least the madness can be tracked within an observable range.